In his new book, Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer takes a piercing look at his personal eating choices as well as, more broadly, those of the food industry. He seeks and reveals discomforting truths — not only to startle himself into a better consciousness but also so he can make informed decisions on behalf of his small children. Here, he discusses the four books that have helped shape his thoughts about what it means to be a father. — Nell Casey
Patrimony: A True Story by Philip Roth
I can't think of a more honest or unflinching account of fatherhood. This is the story of Roth taking care of his father, who is dying of brain cancer. There is a scene in the beginning — Roth's sick, aged father wipes his feces all over the bathroom. It's very easy to talk about feeling awe or great affection or worry about the family but I think it's very hard, and also more honest, to talk about the s--- and blood and physicality of it. That was one of the things that surprised me about parenting, actually. Babies are not intellectual human beings — in the beginning, they are not even capable of smiling, the most simple expression of human life — and yet they're demanding of a physical relationship. One of the funny — or not so funny — tricks of life: As you get older, relationships come back to that physicality. You might find yourself wearing a diaper again and needing someone to bathe and feed you. Can anyone hold a baby without imagining oneself as an old person or the baby as an old person?
Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier
This book is like the continuation of Patrimony in a sense, because it begins after the end. Weiseltier immerses himself in the Jewish ritual of saying Kaddish after his father dies — this act of committing himself does not mean he can make sense of death but he engages with it. Religious or not, as a parent, you are somebody who makes rituals. Whether it is a particular succession of books at bedtime or waffles on Thursday mornings — they're all practices that you repeat and they take on a special meaning. Ritual gives kids and adults a sense of structure where structure is naturally lacking. It's the counting on it that matters.
To check out the rest of Jonathan's picks, head over to Babble.
